Michele's Natural Care aims to help consumers choose safer personal care products. Michele, a chemist and environmental scientist, finds that conventional products contain many chemicals of concern. Her analysis showed she used over 180 chemicals daily from conventional products. More natural alternatives contained fewer and less hazardous ingredients. Michele offers consultation to identify truly natural products and recommends stores screen products to help consumers lower their chemical exposure and body burden.

1. Michele’s Natural Care
Safer more Natural Personal Care
Products
Michele Knox Palmer, M.S.
Chemist, Risk Assessor and Environmental Scientist

2. Objective of Michele’s
Natural Care
 To help consumers make healthier, safer choices in
personal care products (PCPs)
 To evaluate PCPs to ensure that products that state
they are “natural” or “organic,” do not use harsh
chemicals or those harmful to human health or the
environment
 To make recommendations on safer body care
products
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3. What is the present state of
affairs?
 No definitions of “clean,” “green” or “organic”
personal care products (PCPs)
 Insufficient government regulation and consumer
protection
 Regulation by Environment Canada and the
European Union is much stricter than in the US by the
FDA
 With “Conventional” PCPs it’s “Buyer Beware”
 Cosmetic makers are not required to assess how much
gets into your body and what the risks might be.
 No one assesses the safety of your cumulative
exposures to cosmetic ingredients. (EWG)
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4. Why do you need to screen
your products?
 Consumers expect stores to offer safer products
 Recently purchased a hand cream from a popular
health food store
 The product touted itself as being organic and having
all natural fragrance (earth science multi-therapy
oatmeal hand &body lotion)
 Upon reading the long list of ingredients, I discovered
that it contained retinyl palmitate
 Retinyl palmitate is a vitamin A derivative that is shown
by the National Toxicology Program, (2012) to
promote tumor growth in the presence of sunlight
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5. National Toxicology Program
 Report: NTP Technical Report on the
Photococarcinogenesis Study of Retinoic Acid and
Retinyl Palmitate [CAS Nos. 302-79-4 (All-trans-retinoic
acid) and 79-81-2 (All-trans-retinyl palmitate)] in SKH-1
Mice, August 2012
 Conclusions: “Compared to the control cream, RP
further enhanced the photocarcinogenic activity of
SSL in SKH-1 mice based upon increased incidences
and multiplicities of squamous cell neoplasms of the
skin.”
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6. Environmental
Working Group
 The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has the Skin
Deep Database an on-line safety guide for cosmetics
and personal care products
 http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/2004/06/15/exposures-
add-up-survey-results/
 According to EWG (2004) American adults use an
average of 9 personal care products daily
 American women put an average of 168 chemical
ingredients on their bodies every day
 So I asked myself “How many cosmetic ingredients do
I use in a day?”
 So I took the “Cosmetics Challenge”
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7. What products do I use in a
day?
 Dove soap unscented – 14
 Aveeno AN Clear Complexion Foaming Cleanser -20
 Secret invisible solid deodorant – 13
 Aveeno Active Naturals (AN) Lotion – 7
 Aveeno Active Naturals Clear Complexion Moisturizer – 20
 Body Shop Vitamin E eye cream - 21
 Revlon lip-gloss – 35
 Almay mascara - 18
 Crest Scope Whitening toothpaste - 20
 Vaseline Intensive Care hand cream – 18
 For a grand total of 186 chemicals
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Not counting water, sodium chloride, plant oils and essences.
There may be duplicate chemicals.

8. How can you lower your
chemical body burden?
 By using less personal care products
 By using products with less chemicals in them
 With more plant based ingredients
 Stores can help consumer make better choices
 Stores can pre-screen products for the consumers
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9. Conventional Personal Care Products Number of chemicals EWG Hazard*
Dove soap, unscented 14 4
Aveeno Active Naturals Clear Complexion Cleanser 20 6
Secret Invisible Solid deodorant 13 4
Aveeno Active Naturals Lotion 7 2
Aveeno AN CC Moisturizer 20 5
The Body Shop eye cream 21 4
Revlon lip-gloss 35 4
Almay Mascara 18 3
Crest Scope whitening toothpaste 20 4
Dove shampoo 38 5
GF Leave-in conditioning hair cream 10 4
Vaseline hand cream 18 4
Total Chemicals and Average Hazard 234 4.1
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*EWG Skin Deep Cosmetics Database 0-2=low hazard, 3-6=moderate hazard,
7-10=high hazard
Chemical Body Burden and Hazard from
Conventional Personal Care Products

10. More Natural Personal Care Products Number of chemicals EWG Hazard*
Nubian Heritage (NH) Shea butter soap 4 1
Face Naturals (FN) face soap 0 0
FN lavender deodorant 1 1
NH Shea butter lotion 6 2
FN face moisturizer 2 0
FN Plum perfect eye cream 2 0
Burt's Bees lip-gloss 14 4
Tarte mascara 14 3
FN Peppermint toothpaste 1 0
Alaffia Black African Soap 1 1
GF Leave-in conditioning hair cream 10 4
NH papaya&coconut handcream 8 2
Total Chemicals and average hazard 63 1.5
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*EWG Skin Deep Cosmetics Database 0-2=low hazard, 3-6=moderate hazard,
7-10=high hazardous
Lowered Chemical Body Burden from More
“Natural” Personal Care Products

11. Conventional vs. Natural
Products
0
50
100
150
200
250
Number of
Chemicals
Conventional Natural
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
EWG Hazard Rank
Conventional Natural
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12. Why is Lowering your Chemical
Body Burden Important?
 It is important to lower both the chemical exposures
and the hazards of the chemicals used
 Minute exposures add up
 We do not know the effects of multiple additive
exposures over a lifetime.
 Women of child-bearing age are especially
susceptible, because they tend to use a lot of
personal care products
 And many chemicals can be passed on to an unborn
child
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13. What can Michele’s Natural
Care do for You?
 Provide consulting to offer an informed opinion on
products to label “Natural” as a chemist, risk assessor
and environmental scientist
 Help offer your “Conventional” products a certain
level of protection
 Provide recommendations on products to carry and to
reconsider based on potential harmful health and
environmental effects
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14. What does “Natural”
product mean?
 Can make an individual store-wide determination
 Michele’s definition of “Natural”
 more plant based ingredients
 less synthetic chemicals
 no toxic chemicals, petrochemicals, phthalates nor
parabens
 no animal testing
 not suspected to be harmful to human health or the
environment
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15. References and Websites
 http://www.safecosmetics.org/
 http://www.watoxics.org/
 http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
 http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/
 http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/2004/06/15/exposures-
add-up-survey-results/
 http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/lt_rpts/tr568_508.p
df
 Photos courtesy of www.ewg.org,
www.Nubianheritage.com and
www.Facenaturals.com
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16. Michele’s Natural Care
Michele Knox Palmer, M.S.
B.S. Chemistry, M.S. Environmental Engineering
7156 S Oglesby Ave
Chicago, Illinois 60649
773-288-1775 (h) 773-562-5982 (m)
Mipalmer00@gmail.com
www.MichelesNaturalCare.com
(All of the ideas and opinions presented herein are
property of the author and the quoted sources)
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